{"id":38147,"date":"2026-05-14T13:45:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=38147"},"modified":"2026-05-14T13:45:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:45:36","slug":"artists-of-all-ages-show-their-pride-through-art-ahead-of-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/artists-of-all-ages-show-their-pride-through-art-ahead-of-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Artists of all ages show their Pride through art ahead of Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Local artists of all ages have pooled their time and talents to showcase community inclusivity and individual identity ahead of the second annual Aurora Pride Festival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, the Aurora Cultural Centre celebrated the launch of a new exhibit, Within & Between: An Exhibition for Pride. Running through August 2, the show features work from local queer artists Serena Chagas, Jo Gomes, Rory Hope Gouthro, Kevin McBean, Parker McIntyre, Molly Steels, Rojhin Taebi, Natalie Rhys Turpin, as well as Ashlyn Gregory, the Aurora Cultural Centre\u2019s interim Gallery Manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conceived to coincide with the second-annual Aurora Pride Festival, a collaboration between the Aurora Community Band, Borealis Big Band, and the Town of Aurora, it invited artists to showcase work that underscored their varied interpretations of Pride \u2013 and the result is a diverse celebration of inclusivity and acceptance, but also serious meditations on identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m so honoured to be a part of this exhibit,\u201d says Gomes. \u201cMy photography submission reflects my basic understanding of what Pride means to me. It\u2019s around visibility, quiet courage to exist authentically. The themes I have are pieces of belonging, being seen, and living pride with every step forward. My Pride is both a personal journey and a collective experience for me. It\u2019s not just a celebration, but also the courage to live authentically. I’ve been out for 40 years, so visibility has been a journey for me, and one of my photos is called Stepping Into Pride, which is basically talking about continuous journey, not a single moment. It’s more about an act of stepping forward and, again, moving into your authentic self, and that’s fluid and changes over time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McBean, who jokes that he just might be the eldest of the participating artists, looked at Pride through a historic lens, depicting the history of Stonewall, often cited as the first protest that led to the Pride movement, as well as more contemporary movements, including Drag Queen Story Hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the younger artists is 13-year-old Gouthro who said many facets of being queer can be hard to express \u2013 but art makes expression that much easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe piece I created represents dysphoria transgender people feel around their body\u2026 which is something I think a lot of younger queer people experience,\u201d said Gouthro. \u201cI wanted to get that out to show that even though it\u2019s really hard and it\u2019s really not a fun experience to go through, there\u2019s definitely a great way to find a safe space in a community. I have gone from dysphoria every day constantly to being very proud of my identify and who I am, and that meant a lot to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also looking at this facet of the queer experience is McIntyre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gender dysphoria often features in McIntyre\u2019s work, but the wall-dominating piece they submitted illustrates \u201cthe feeling of how fulfilling being trans can actually be and how unique of an experience it is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fulfilment is also a theme for Taebi who says the theme of love is explored through acrylics and oils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis exhibition was conceived by Samantha Jones, our previous curator who is now on maternity leave, and it perfectly aligns with the upcoming Aurora Pride Festival at the end of the month, but it is also an opportunity for queer artists in York Region to get to show their work and celebrate the amazing arts community we have,\u201d says Gregory. \u201cThis has been a really fun exhibition to curate and, as a queer curator, it was sort of a dream come true to be able to work with all these artists and I think the show is fantastic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted this exhibition to show just the breadth and depth of the queer experience, how different it is for everybody, and I think we have a really great cross-section of the community here. So often you see narratives about how difficult it can be and that\u2019s very true, but there\u2019s also so much joy and happiness to be found within the queer community and within queer relationships and just being a queer person in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want people to walk away from this exhibition and think, \u2018Wow, being queer is a joyous thing, it\u2019s a complex thing, and it\u2019s difficult for everybody. We have some that are very happy narratives, some a little more sombre, a little more introspective.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are sentiments shared by many of the participating artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just hope people think, \u2018Wow, I\u2019m surrounded by so much creativity,\u201d says Taebi. \u201cI hope they become more curious. I hope they look around York Region and a bit more and be like, \u2018Wow, there\u2019s so much more diversity than I was expecting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adds McIntyre: \u201cI just hope people see there is so much joy within the community. It\u2019s not just the really dark stuff that gets covered because that\u2019s easy to talk about. I hope that younger queer people see that the community is a lot more visible in their immediate area.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This visibility is an essential component, noted Gomes, a college educator, agreeing with McIntyre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt helps educate, connect, and empower others,\u201d says Gomes. \u201cI do hope this exhibition does that for others who may feel scared to come out because there\u2019s a lot of scary parts to that, right?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adds Gouthro: \u201cThe main thing I really want people to step away from, not just with my art, but the entire gallery is that it\u2019s a very complex identity, but it\u2019s also such a happy think. I wanted to really emphasize the point that even in hard times, there\u2019s definitely light in this community and there is light at the end of that tunnel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within & Between: An Exhibition for Pride is on at the Aurora Cultural Centre\u2019s Great Hall Gallery through August 2. The Aurora Pride Festival will take place in the adjoining Aurora Town Square on Sunday, May 31, from 1 \u2013 5 p.m. The celebration begins with an opening ceremony at 1.15 p.m., followed at 2 p.m. by a performance from the Borealis Big Band, from 3 \u2013 4 p.m. with Pride-themed games and activities, before concluding with a performance from the Aurora Community Band.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information, visit aurora.ca\/whatson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local artists of all ages have pooled their time and talents to showcase community inclusivity and individual identity ahead of the second annual Aurora Pride Festival. On Thursday, the Aurora Cultural Centre celebrated the launch of a new exhibit, Within & Between: An Exhibition for Pride. Running through August 2, the show features work from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":38148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,4,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-headline_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2026-05-14-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9Vh","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-21 15:54:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38149,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38147\/revisions\/38149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}